First Reports of President's Home Buifding Conf erence No* Ready

Washington, Mar'ch 28.-With a foreword by President Hoover, in which he states that, "The next great lift in elevating the living.conditions of the American family must come from a concerted and nationwide movement to provide new and better homes," the first volume of the final reports of the President's Conference on Home Building and Home Ownership is today offered to the public. It includes the first part of a complete program for raising the standard of American housing, a prog'ram based upon the experience of scores of private and public groups and individuals professionally engaged in all the multitude of fields whose combined activities produ,ce modern housing. It represents the first fruits of the Conference held last December, which, by pooling all pertinent experience, for the first time made such a program possible.

This present volume, entitled "Planning for Residential Districts," offers a means to put an end to the rapid decay which is the curse of Ameri,can home neighf.61fi66{,s, and so to protect the investment of the home owner. It includes the reports of the four ,committees of the Conference that dealt with the home surroundings, namely the committees on City Planning and Zoning, Subdivision Layout, Utilities for Houses, and Landscape Planning and Planting.

These reports are the first to appear because the Conferen,ce revealed that good housing is dependent first of all on good surroundings. A dwelling may be of good design and well constructed, but if it is in a slum or a factory drstrict, if it lacks privacy, quiet, or sunlight, running water or sewers, if through-traffic endangers the lives of its children, if ugliness is all about it, if no parks or playgrounds are within walking distance, it is not good housing. These faults are common to many American home neighborhoods and there can be no effective improvement of our housing standards until they are removed.

The present volume,contains a program for their removal, prepared by men and women at the head of the various professions,qenqslnsd-city planners, realtors, subdividers, housing experts, architects, utility engineers, representatives of government, landscape architects, sociologists. For its fulfillment it demands the cooperation of citizens with their local governments and the use of a highly developed prof essional technique.

The heart of this program is a plan for every community -metropolis or village, old or embryonic. To secure safety and quiet to home areas, and to restore the vanishing spirit of civic loyalty the program calls for the development oi each neighborhood within the plan as a self-contained rrnit around the school as a ,center. It calls for the limiting of bulk and height of buildings to secure sunlight ancl iir: for the protection of the home owner's investment and the exclusion of factories and other influen,ces destructive of homes by zoning regulations; for the redu,ction of top-heavy costs for public services and the easing of transportation difficulties-at the same time that natural amenities ale preserved for the home owner, and the essential public serv-ices insured him-by the control of growth and of subdivision development. This same control will prevent the loss oT in- vestments which, with the unlimited subdivision booms oi the past, has amounted to hundreds of millions.

The beauty of the individual horne must, of course, depend mainly on the owner, but the report on landscape planning and planting offers him a guide by which to make the most of his home and lays down the principles that must control the planting of public places and the elimination of the unsightly features that now disfigure so many neighborhoods.

Because housing in unincorporated areas adjacent to cities presents ,certain unique problems a report on this subject by a special group of the Conference is included.

In an introduction, the Editors Dr. John M. Gries and Dr. James Ford, state that the volumes will serve as a guide "to every citizen or organization that feels stirred by the great challenge of our housing problem." This first volume on the home surroundings is a handbook particularly for city planners, subdividers, real estate men, and city officials as well as for garden ,clubs and civic improvement associations. But it supplies also a text book for schools and ,colleges, and a sour'ce book to business and civic organizatrons.

The volumes in cloth binding can be obtained for $1.15 postpaid, by writing to Dr. John M. Gries, Executive Secretary, President's Conference on Home Building and Home Ownership, Department of Commerce, 'Washington, D. C. Thirty-one committees colle,cted data on every phase ot housing for the meeting of the President's Conference last December. The thirty-one reports will make up in all eleven volumes, the remaining ten of whi,ch will be published in the course of the next few months. Those now in preparation are: Ilome Finance and Taxation; Slums, Large-scale Housing and Decentralization; Home Ownership, Income and Types of Dwellings; House Design, Construction and Equipment; Negro Housing; Farm and Village Housing.

17th Annual International Convention

The Seventeenth Annual International Convention and Inform-a-Show of the National Association of Purchasing Agents will be held at the Book-Cadillac Hotel, Detroit-, Mich., June 6, 7,8 and,9, 1932. An attendance of between ]49 en4 1500 purchasing agents from all parts of the United States and Canada is expected.

The Inform-a-Show is an industrial exhibit by means of which products and services are brought to tie direct attention of purchasing agents. Among tlie exhibitors who have already reserved space are many outstanding national advertisers. Non-member purchasing agents will be permitted to register for and attend convlntion sessions. Tne Inform-a-Show will be open to interested persons without registration. Admission tickets will be available without charge.